Join us on Tuesday 16th December as we protest outside Sotheby's auction house as part of our campaign against Israel Blood Diamonds. Sotheby's Diamonds are complicit in the slaughter of the Samouni family in Gaza in 2009 and other war crimes through their funding of the notorious Givati Brigade of the Israeli army. We will be picketing outside the "Fine Jewels" auction taking place inside Sotheby's on Tuesday, please join us from 12:30-2:30pm.

SOTHEBY'S BLOOD DIAMONDS & THE SAMOUNI FAMILY MASSACRE

Sotheby's Diamonds is a “unique partnership” between the Steinmetz Diamonds Group (now called Diacore) and Sotheby's. The Steinmetz Diamond Group through the Steinmetz Foundation funds and supports the Givati Brigade of the Israeli army. The Givati Brigade stands accused of war crimes and possible crimes against humanity by the UN Human Rights Council.

The Givati Brigade is responsible for the massacre of the Samouni family in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead. On 4th January 2009 the Brigade rounded up 100 members of the Samouni family and ordered them into the house of Wa'el Samouni. The house was then bombed, and rescue services were prevented from approaching for four days, with ambulances being fired on. When rescue workers were finally allowed access, they found buried beneath the rubble traumatised children besides the corpses of their parents and siblings. The Givati had massacred 29 family members and in case anyone mistook their intent they left a message on one of the remaining walls of the house, daubed in Hebrew it read "The only good Arab is a dead Arab".

The Foundation’s website boasted giving support to the Brigade specifically during Operation Cast Lead. All references were however deleted from the website once it came to public attention - see before & after screenshots (on leaflet).

The surviving members of the Samouni family in a video appeal have asked people in the UK to reject diamonds from the Steinmetz company. Last year when De Beers presented the Queen a Steinmetz Diamond on her Jubilee to display with the Crown Jewels in the Tower of London the survivors of the massacre send a message to the Queen and people of England asking them to reject and remove the offensive blood diamond from display. This lead to six months of protests outside the Tower of London until the Tower indicated that the diamond was no longer on display.

The Steinmetz Diamond Group has undergone major rebranding in 2014. The tainted Steinmetz name is gone and the public facing company is now called Diacore and run by Beny Steinmetz's brother Daniel whilst Beny still runs the diamond mining back-end of the business which retains the Steinmetz's name. This charade changes nothing, Sotheby's £40 million Pink Star diamond crafted by Steinmetz is still a blood diamond and Sotheby's Diamonds, 50% owned by Diacore, is still embroiled in war crimes in Gaza.

Leaflet Design

Leaflet - front

Leaflet - back

PHOTO REPORT OF PREVIOUS SOTHEBY'S PROTEST (MAR 2013)

LIVE UPDATES DURING PROTEST

We will, inshAllah, be tweeting live (hash tags @Sothebys #BloodDiamonds) from the protest with live photos being uploaded to our twitter and facebook page. So if you can't join us on the day, please help us by sharing the photos as they get uploaded.

Academia is not innocent.. The Hebrew University has been slowly but consistently expropriating land and expelling Palestinian owners in occupied East Jerusalem. Tel Aviv University refuses to acknowledge the fact that it sits on top of an ethnically cleansed Palestinian village. Ben Gurion University has supported in various ways the slow ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian Bedouin's in the Negev, these finding were kept secret until recently and in accordance with the university’s agreement with the Ministry. Haifa University boasts one of the most racist academics in Israel who relentlessly and influentially provides academic justification for ethnic cleansing. Haifa University sponsored a wide campaign attempting to cover up a little known zionist massacre of Tantora near Haifa in 1948. Bar Ilan University not only operates a campus on the illegal colony of Ariel near Nabulas, it has also awarded Sharon an honorary doctorate!